Oklahoma City Thunder forward Aleksej Pokusevski threw the ball at the padding of the basketball pole in disgust. There was still 6:30 to play in the third quarter, but the Philadelphia 76ers’ lead had ballooned to 27 points after the rookie’s turnover led to a layup in transition.
Turnovers killed the Thunder in the 121-90 loss on Monday. The team committed almost as many turnovers (29) as they had made shots (35), and Philadelphia scored 35 points off Oklahoma City’s giveaways.
Williams, Pokusevski, Theo Maledon and Svi Mykhailiuk had five turnovers apiece. That group of four players combined for 12 made shots.
“Philly has great defense,” Williams said. “They got a bunch of long, lengthy defenders, got two solid big men, so it kind of made it tough for us tonight.
The defeat extended the Thunder’s losing streak to 14 games, tying a franchise-high set in 2008, their first season in Oklahoma City.
“I’ve never gone in the locker room after a loss and seen an apathetic group, and that’s a good thing,” said head coach Mark Daigneault. “It should hurt, and we should be disappointed, that’s a part of competition.”
With a point differential that grew as large as 37 points, Philadelphia was able to play all 15 players on their roster as the team got over its own four-game losing streak. No Sixers starter played more than 25 minutes, and Joel Embiid scored 21 points in just 23 minutes.
The 76ers shot 54.7% from the field and 45.2% from deep as the Thunder weren’t able to effectively stop anyone, whether star or rotation player off bench.
The only real positive for Oklahoma City was Ty Jerome, who scored 22 points on 4-for-8 shooting from 3 and 4-for-4 shooting from inside the arc.
Daigneault said that Jerome and Darius Bazley, who had 14 points on 6-for-11 shooting, did a good job playing through a game that got out of reach early.
“It’s interesting to see who can kind of weather that, who just kind of plays, and thought he did that tonight,” said Daigneault. “I throw Baze in that category as well, those were the two guys who really stood out in that way tonight.”
